Greenhouse gas fluxes in southeastern U.S. coastal plain wetlands under contrasting land uses

Whether through sea level rise or wetland restoration, agricultural soils in coastal areas will be inundated at increasing rates, renewing connections to sensitive surface waters and raising critical questions about environmental trade-offs. Wetland restoration is often implemented in agricultural catchments to improve water quality through nutrient removal. Yet flooding of soils can also increase production of the greenhouse gases nitrous oxide and methane, representing a potential environmental trade-off. Our study aimed to quantify and compare greenhouse gas emissions from unmanaged and restored forested wetlands, as well as actively managed agricultural fields within the North Carolina coastal plain, USA. In sampling conducted once every two months over a two-year comparative study, we found that soil carbon dioxide flux (range: 8000-64 800 kg CO2 x ha(-1) x yr(-1)) comprised 66-100% of total greenhouse gas emissions from all sites and that methane emissions (range: -6.87 to 197 kg CH4 x ha(-1) x yr(-1)) were highest from permanently inundated sites, while nitrous oxide fluxes (range: -1.07 to 139 kg N2O x ha(-1) x yr(-1)) were highest in sites with lower water tables. Contrary to predictions, greenhouse gas fluxes (as CO2 equivalents) from the restored wetland were lower than from either agricultural fields or unmanaged forested wetlands. In these acidic coastal freshwater ecosystems, the conversion of agricultural fields to flooded young forested wetlands did not result in increases in greenhouse gas emissions.     

Overtown: neighbourhood,change, challenge and “invironment”

This paper explores how residents of Overtown, a low-income neighbourhood in Miami, Florida, view the positive and negative aspects of their neighbourhood “invironment” through photographs taken by residents. The “invironment” [Bell, M., 2004. An invitation to environmental sociology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press] alludes to the interactions between environment/surroundings and the human body. Residents involved with a community social justice organisation were provided with a photographic workshop and cameras to visually document the positive and negative aspects of their neighbourhood. These participant photographers provided narratives paired with their photographs which were then exhibited at local community events. During the exhibits, community members’ comments on the photographs were recorded. This paper analyses community issues through both photographs and neighbourhood comments inspired by the photographs. The following themes of importance to residents were derived from the photographs and discussion with residents: Housing, Public Space, Neighbourhood Economy, History, Environmental/Invironmental Issues, Human Capital and Power. These themes were all connected by residents’ concerns about inequality in Overtown compared to other neighbourhoods in Miami.     

Effects of urbanization and urban stream restoration on the physical and biological structure of stream ecosystems

Streams, as low-lying points in the landscape, are strongly influenced by the stormwaters, pollutants, and warming that characterize catchment urbanization. River restoration projects are an increasingly popular method for mitigating urban insults. Despite the growing frequency and high expense of urban stream restoration projects, very few projects have been evaluated to determine whether they can successfully enhance habitat structure or support the stream biota characteristic of reference sites. We compared the physical and biological structure of four urban degraded, four urban restored, and four forested streams in the Piedmont region of North Carolina to quantify the ability of reach-scale stream restoration to restore physical and biological structure to urban streams and to examine the assumption that providing habitat is sufficient for biological recovery. To be successful at mitigating urban impacts, the habitat structure and biological communities found in restored streams should be more similar to forested reference sites than to their urban degraded counterparts. For every measured reach- and patch-scale attribute, we found that restored streams were indistinguishable from their degraded urban stream counterparts. Forested streams were shallower, had greater habitat complexity and median sediment size, and contained less-tolerant communities with higher sensitive taxa richness than streams in either urban category. Because heavy machinery is used to regrade and reconfigure restored channels, restored streams had less canopy cover than either forested or urban streams. Channel habitat complexity and watershed impervious surface cover (ISC) were the best predictors of sensitive taxa richness and biotic index at the reach and catchment scale, respectively. Macroinvertebrate communities in restored channels were compositionally similar to the communities in urban degraded channels, and both were dissimilar to communities in forested streams. The macroinvertebrate communities of both restored and urban degraded streams were correlated with environmental variables characteristic of degraded urban systems. Our study suggests that reach-scale restoration is not successfully mitigating for the factors causing physical and biological degradation.     

River restoration: the fuzzy logic of repairing reaches to reverse catchment scale degradation

River restoration is an increasingly common approach utilized to reverse past degradation of freshwater ecosystems and to mitigate the anticipated damage to freshwaters from future development and resource-extraction activities. While the practice of river restoration has grown exponentially over the last several decades, there has been little empirical evaluation of whether restoration projects individually or cumulatively achieve the legally mandated goals of improving the structure and function of streams and rivers. New efforts to evaluate river restoration projects that use channel reconfiguration as a methodology for improving stream ecosystem structure and function are finding little evidence for measurable ecological improvement. While designed channels may have less-incised banks and greater sinuousity than the degraded streams they replace, these reach-scale efforts do not appear to be effectively mitigating the physical, hydrological, or chemical alterations that are responsible for the loss of sensitive taxa and the declines in water quality that typically motivate restoration efforts. Here we briefly summarize this new literature, including the collection of papers within this Invited Feature, and provide our perspective on the limitations of current restoration.     

Indicators of ecosystem function identify alternate states in the sagebrush steppe

Models of ecosystem change that incorporate nonlinear dynamics and thresholds, such as state-and-transition models (STMs), are increasingly popular tools for land management decision-making. However, few models are based on systematic collection and documentation of ecological data, and of these, most rely solely on structural indicators (species composition) to identify states and transitions. As STMs are adopted as an assessment framework throughout the United States, finding effective and efficient ways to create data-driven models that integrate ecosystem function and structure is vital. This study aims to (1) evaluate the utility of functional indicators (indicators of rangeland health, IRH) as proxies for more difficult ecosystem function measurements and (2) create a data-driven STM for the sagebrush steppe of Colorado, USA, that incorporates both ecosystem structure and function. We sampled soils, plant communities, and IRH at 41 plots with similar clayey soils but different site histories to identify potential states and infer the effects of management practices and disturbances on transitions. We found that many IRH were correlated with quantitative measures of functional indicators, suggesting that the IRH can be used to approximate ecosystem function. In addition to a reference state that functions as expected for this soil type, we identified four biotically and functionally distinct potential states, consistent with the theoretical concept of alternate states. Three potential states were related to management practices (chemical and mechanical shrub treatments and seeding history) while one was related only to ecosystem processes (erosion). IRH and potential states were also related to environmental variation (slope, soil texture), suggesting that there are environmental factors within areas with similar soils that affect ecosystem dynamics and should be noted within STMs. Our approach generated an objective, data-driven model of ecosystem dynamics for rangeland management. Our findings suggest that the IRH approximate ecosystem processes and can distinguish between alternate states and communities and identify transitions when building data-driven STMs. Functional indicators are a simple, efficient way to create data-driven models that are consistent with alternate state theory. Managers can use them to improve current model-building methods and thus apply state-and-transition models more broadly for land management decision-making.     

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in effluents from wastewater treatment plants and receiving streams in Tianjin, China

Surface water, suspended particulate matter, pore water, and sediment samples were collected and analyzed for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in Yongding New River, South Drainage Canal and North Drainage Canal, which receive most of wastewater from industrial city of Tianjin. PAH concentrations in effluent samples of wastewater treatment plants (WTP) discharging into the South Drainage Canal and North Drainage Canal were quantified for the first time. The results showed that the discharge of the WTPs recently only contributed to the PAH contamination in the canals near the outlets of the WTPs. PAH levels in sediments of the streams were greatly higher than those in soils by riverbank probably due to receiving large amounts of untreated wastewater. Unusually high benz[a] anthracene concentration strongly influenced the seasonal and spatial variation of total PAH concentrations in South Drainage Canal. Paired samples t test of ??Nap, Fl, Phe, Fluo and ??Nap, Phe, Fluo, Chry concentrations, which were dominant components in the air samples from non-heating and heating season, respectively, in the suspended particulate matters from the streams showed that PAH source from air deposition was more important for Yongding New River than that for South Drainage Canal and North Drainage Canal. Source apportionment based on PAH profiles indicated that coal combustion was the major PAH contamination source, and coke oven sources and wood combustion also contributed to the PAH contamination of the streams. This was further indicated by organic petrography analysis.     

Cloning of urea transporters from the kidneys of two batoid elasmobranchs: evidence for a common elasmobranch urea transporter isoform

One of the two phloretin-sensitive, facilitated urea transporters identified from the kidneys of the myliobatiform, euryhaline elasmobranch, Dasyatis sabina, a 379 amino acid protein ([D. sabina]strUT-2), was very similar to the 380 amino acid isoform (shUT) present in the kidney of the squaliform, dogfish shark, Squalus acanthias (a species that can be considered marginally euryhaline since it utilizes upper estuarine, as well as ocean habitats). To test the proposal that this isoform is a conserved urea transporter (UT) expressed in the kidneys of diverse elasmobranchs, UTs were cloned from the kidneys of a rajiform elasmobranch, the stenohaline skate, Leucoraja ocellata and another dasyatid stingray, the marginally euryhaline, Dasyatis say. Utilizing 5′/3′ RACE, a 2,060 nt cDNA that encoded a phloretin-sensitive, 378 amino acid skate urea transporter ([L. ocellata]skUT-2) and a 1,683 nt cDNA that encoded a stingray 379 amino acid UT ([D. say]strUT-2) were obtained. These deduced UTs have a very high sequence identity with the known elasmobranch Uts. [L. ocellata]skUT-2 was 86% identical to [D. sabina]strUT-2 and 84% identical to [S. acanthias]shUT. [D. say]strUT-2 was 97% identical to the [D. sabina]strUT-2. These findings support the hypothesis that a conserved UT isoform is present in the kidneys of marine elasmobranchs, and is an important pathway for facilitated urea transport in the kidneys of marine elasmobranchs. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. H.A. Gefroh and E.E. Cwengros contributed equally to this study.     

New expansions in old clades: population genetics and phylogeny of Gnatholepis species (Teleostei: Gobioidei) in the Pacific

Species of the reef goby genus Gnatholepis exhibit enormous geographic ranges with little evidence of population segregation detectable based on mitochondrial DNA. To determine if genetic differentiation is evident with more rapidly evolving markers, seven microsatellite loci were screened from the species Gnatholepis anjerensis and G. scapulostigma and population segregation was tested among fish from across the South Pacific. Both AMOVA and pairwise F _ST analyses showed that, in concordance with previous mitochondrial results, most genetic variance occurs within individual populations, as population differentiation is evident only over the largest distances (>3,700 km). This result is contrasted with previous studies demonstrating that despite their relatively long larval periods, some gobiid fishes exhibit population differentiation on small (<100 km) geographic scales. Coalescence analysis showed that current Pacific populations of these species originated in the Pleistocene, presumably related to sea level fluctuations associated with episodes of glaciation. However, rate analysis based on a phylogeny of Gnatholepis species indicates that the species themselves are much older, consistent with a complex history of rapid, short-term population contractions and expansions, with corresponding rapid dispersal.     

Malthusian overfishing and efforts to overcome it on Kenyan coral reefs

This study examined trends along a gradient of fishing intensity in an artisanal coral reef fishery over a 10-year period along 75 km of Kenya's most populated coastline. As predicted by Malthusian scenarios, catch per unit effort (CPUE), mean trophic level, the functional diversity of fished taxa, and the diversity of gear declined, while total annual catch and catch variability increased along the fishing pressure gradient. The fishery was able to sustain high (approximately 16 Mg x km(-2) x yr(-1)) but variable yields at high fishing pressure due to the dominance of a few productive herbivorous fish species in the catch. The effect of two separate management strategies to overcome this Malthusian pattern was investigated: fisheries area closure and elimination of the dominant and most "competitive" gear. We found that sites within 5 km of the enforced closure showed significantly lower total catch and CPUE, but increased yield stability and trophic level of catch than predicted by regression models normalized for fishing effort. Sites that had excluded illegal beach seine use through active gear management exhibited increased total catch and CPUE. There was a strong interaction between closure and gear management, which indicates that, for closures to be effective at increasing catch, there must be simultaneous efforts at gear management around the periphery of the closures. We propose that Malthusian effects are responsible for the variation in gear and catch and that active management through reduced effort and reductions in the most competitive gear have the greatest potential to increase the functional and trophic diversity and per-person productivity.